Press Briefing on the President's Meeting with African American Leaders by Jim Towey, Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
Via Telephone

2:31 P.M. EDT

MR. TOWEY: Hi, this is Jim Towey. The President had a 40-minute
meeting today with 20 African American leaders of the faith community
and civic and other corporate leaders to discuss a range of issues of
interest to them. This should be in the context of his previous
meeting, January 25th, right after his inauguration, and Secretary
Rice's May 23rd meeting, which was a prelude to the G8 gathering.

So the focus of this meeting centered on four issues of mutual interest.
He spoke at length with them about the G8 summit and what is being done
in Africa, what they've done on malaria, what the President has proposed
on malaria prevention and treatment over the next five years -- an
increase of $1.2 billion to reduce malaria deaths by half. He spoke at
length. And Ambassador Tobias was in the meeting and the two of them
discussed at length the U.S. commitment on AIDS and HIV treatment and
prevention, and how 230,000 Africans are now receiving these
anti-retroviral drugs.

The President also spoke of the efforts on humanitarian relief. And
Secretary Rice joined the meeting at the end and briefed the group on
her trip to the Sudan. The President also spoke, in fact, opened the
meeting discussing the Faith-based and Community Initiative. He thanked
many of the leaders who have written letters in support of charitable
choice, and also groups that for the first time are able to compete on a
level playing field for federal funds.

And in the context of that discussion, the President spoke of the
importance of the federal funds and also spoke of the importance of
faith-based and community groups being able to access some of the
corporate and foundation money that is granted each year. Many large
corporations have policies that explicitly rule out donations or grants
to faith-based organizations regardless of their effectiveness. Some of
the corporations have a strict requirement that groups have a 501(C)(3),
which many churches don't have, if they're going to receive a grant.
And many organizations prohibit employee matching of funds to
faith-based organizations.

What President Bush announced today was his plan to have a White House
summit in March to discuss these issues so that barriers that prevent
faith-based organizations from accessing corporate and foundations funds
be removed. These barriers are preventing many of these groups from
being able to expand their capacity to help more people. They have
effective programs. And I think what the President wants to do is share
with corporate and foundation leaders what's been done at the federal
level to remove barriers so that groups could make grants to these
organizations and not fund proselytizing or worship or religious
activity, but would fund effective social service programs.

The President also spoke with them about the Medicare drug prescription
benefit and how this benefit will help 42 million Americans and
encouraged many of these leaders to get the word out on what's at stake
and how many individuals in their communities might benefit from this
drug prescription coverage. So they had a good exchange on this range
of issues.

Obviously, there are many, many issues of interest to the African
American community, and so there wasn't an effort to try to talk about
all of those issues. This was really the focus at the meeting for these
four. The President wanted to be timely after his trip to Gleneagles,
and I think it was a continued, very candid dialogue and discussion with
leaders who are on the front lines in addressing these issues. And I
think the President is very gratified by the response he had today. And
we will continue the dialogue and these groups will be part of the
effort to prepare for the corporate and foundation summit, the
philanthropic summit that will be held in March.

Be happy to answer your questions.

Q Mr. Towey, can you tell us how many black leaders were there, and
perhaps some of their names or churches?

MR. TOWEY: We can get a list out to you. Alyssa McClenning will get a
list out to you of who the attendees were. Some of them were church
leaders, like Pastor Ken Hutcherson or Gene Rivers. And some wear
several hats. Then there were groups that were corporate leaders, and
there were some from civic and community organizations -- Hope Sullivan
from the Leon -- so we'll get you the list, but it was a diverse group.

These groups differ each time, there's some overlap. But we have an
ongoing dialogue with these groups, and so some might have been in the
first meeting with the President, some may not have.

Q Can you tell me how, if at all, this fits into the broader effort
by the GOP to reach out to the black community politically and to ask
the black community to give the Republican Party a sort of a second
look?

MR. TOWEY: Well, my office organized this meeting, and so our office is
not into the politics, it's into the compassion and efforts to try to
help the poor. And the reality is, if you want to help the addicts and
the homeless and the jobless and the children of prisoners, you have to
have an ongoing dialogue with many of these pastors and leaders, because
in their communities, these issues are acute.

So we have -- I have never looked at the politics of it, and I think
President Bush said from the beginning he was going to reach out to
these groups and of course that defied the stereotype of Republicans.
But the reality is, the President has a record now in Africa on the
faith-based initiative with minority home ownership, with education. So
these are -- it's shown that the President has kept his word, that he's
going to continue to have this discussion. And I think the President
made it really clear early in his remarks that the meeting wasn't about
politics. And I think everyone in that room was there because they have
mutual interests on issues.

And so there's -- I think the President is going to go about doing what
he thinks is sound policy and the right thing for America, and if -- and
there will be another day to sort out the politics for that.

Q I asked you this before, but I wanted to kind of maybe ask it a
little more sharply. But you said that it's not about politics, but on
some of these issues, like Africa and when it comes to aid to Africa and
even the faith-based issues, you could use the help of members of
Congress, including the Congressional Black Caucus, which has positions
on some of these issues. Why not reach out to them and invite them to a
meeting like this?

MR. TOWEY: Well, I think, Peter, the President, he had a discussion
earlier with the Congressional Black Caucus. I remember when they
gathered in the Cabinet Room and met with the President. He meets with
members periodically -- I think in Indianapolis. So he'll meet with
some of the membership. I went and did an event with Congressman Ford
in his district. I think our office has been reaching out to members of
the caucus.

And the reality is the President said he was going to make an outreach
to the groups that are on the front line dealing with these issues. I
don't think it's exclusively that approach. He is working with members
of Congress, and I think there's -- you know, when Secretary Rice came
in the room, and there's Claude Allen, the President's Domestic Policy
Advisor, the President is fulfilling and keeping his word, which is what
he said he would do when he was appointed, that he'd have a
representative government, and that he would make African American
issues a priority of his. And he continues to do that. So I think that
the President has been reaching out to members of Congress, and is
trying to avoid the great political debate. And he was in Indianapolis
on July 14th, trying to just focus on the issues.

Q Jim, if I could follow up, I haven't seen the list, obviously, but
assuming there were no NAACP members there -- if there were, correct me
-- but if not, why not?

MR. TOWEY: I don't know if there were NAACP members or not, but there
were no organizational members. I think our efforts to reach out, we
invited the head of the National Urban League. We tried to reach out to
a good cross-section of folks. But the reality is, when you talk about
religious -- and the faith-based initiative, the NAACP has not supported
charitable choice. But you do find many of the people on the front
lines doing the work, such as these pastors, do support charitable
choice. And so I think there are issues that within the African
American community there may be a difference of opinion. And the
President, I think, is willing to reach out and continue a dialogue
that's going to achieve goals of mutual interest.

So I don't -- I think the President has been very open to casting a very
broad net to discuss with groups, but he is trying to keep the politics
out of it, and I think that's -- in this town, it's not so easy. But
the President has tried to focus on the substance. He's not asking
anybody in there, did you all vote for me last election, he's reaching
out, saying, what can we do to get the Medicare prescription drug
benefit information out there to the people in your churches and in your
organizations. And so -- and there were a number of people today in the
meeting that -- you'll get the list of them, but some of them that
represent the fraternal -- the Pan-Hellenic group, the National
Pan-Hellenic Council, the chairman of that. You've got a lot of groups
there that are not traditionally in meetings with politicians to begin
with. The President wants to reach out to them, hear their ideas, and
also find ways that we can work together on Africa issues and AIDS and
faith-based initiative and other issues.

Q Was there any additional money for Africa discussed in the meeting,
or just a review of what was mentioned at the G8?

MR. TOWEY: Why don't I say what was in the meeting, and then John can
follow up, just about in general, about the aid. In the meeting, there
was a sense of appreciation for what America did at the G8. Secretary
Rice talked a little bit about that, and also about her trip to the
Sudan and what America is doing there with its humanitarian relief and
what it's doing after the agreement that was brokered earlier to bring
some peace to that troubled region.

And so this was a large part of the discussion. And there was a
recognition that the U.S. has made significant commitments to Africa and
that there was a sense, too, by some of the members that we -- that
there's such great need that we need to do more and there was a
discussion about how to do that.

John, I don't know if you want to add to that.

Q We can't hear anybody.

MR. TOWEY: I'm sorry, I guess what's happened is he couldn't be heard.

Q Now he can be heard.

MR. TOWEY: Can you hear him now?

Q Yes.

MR. TOWEY: I'm sorry, John. You may want to start at the top.

MR. SIMON: The mute button was pressed, I apologize.

Q I just wanted to know, was there any new money mentioned or talked
about?

MR. SIMON: And just in terms of new resources for Africa --

Q And who's talking here?

MR. SIMON: This is John Simon, the Senior Director for Relief,
Stabilization and Development.

Q Spell your last name, please.

MR. SIMON: S-i-m-o-n.

Q Okay, thank you.

MR. SIMON: In terms of resources, over the last two months the
President has announced a dramatic increase in resources for Africa.
When the Prime Minister of the UK was here on June 7th, the President
announced $674 million in additional funds for humanitarian emergencies
in Africa. That's in addition to $1.4 billion that the United States
was already spending, to bring the total to more than $2 billion.

Shortly thereafter, there was the debt relief deal that the G8
announced. The President was one of the prime drivers to achieve, along
with the Prime Minister. And that is going to relieve, when it's fully
implemented, almost $60 billion in debt owed by African countries to the
international financial institutions.

Then on June 30th, the President announced three initiatives: the
malaria initiative, $1.2 billion over the next five years; the African
education initiative, $400 million over the next four years; and the
women's justice initiative, another $55 million over the next three
years. And then just recently at the AGOA forum in Dakar, Secretary
Rice announced a new trade initiative that would double our existing
trade for African enterprise and development.

Q I was wondering if you could talk just a bit more about the
encouragement of corporate donations? I'm wondering whether this is
something that's been mentioned before, but it's a new push on this
topic?

MR. TOWEY: The President, in his speech at Notre Dame University, May,
2001, stated his intention to have this kind of gathering. Then
September 11th took place, then the corporate governance scandals took
place. And so it was postponed. And the President had some discussions
in January with a number of African American and other faith-based and
community leaders and decided that now would be a good time for us to
announce that we're having it in March of 2006.

So this is simply fulfilling what he had mentioned at the beginning of
his first term and -- but the reality is, you do see a number of large
corporate givers that explicitly rule out grants to faith-based
organizations. I think we can all understand their reluctance, just as
we see within government a reluctance to fund a faith-based organization
because you don't want money to go to preaching or proselytizing.

But what we have today in America are organizations that can segregate
their funds, and that the corporate or foundation or government money
can go to the social service, itself. And so the President wants to see
the focus on effectiveness -- not on religion, but on results. And the
reality is, while we have removed barriers at the federal level, within
corporate boardrooms and foundation boardrooms there are still barriers
in place.

So this will be an opportunity for us. And I think if you want to know
the goals of the summit, we simply want to see ways to forge more
effective partnerships with the private sector to open up their
resources to faith-based and community groups, and to educate these
givers about what their benefits are, because they can leverage the
experience and the volunteers and resources of these small community
organizations. And so we're -- we think we can highlight the importance
of what these resources can do to address the needs of our poor. And I
think this will be a way to level the playing field out there with the
private resources that we're seeing now. You have 28 governors with
faith-based offices now in America. Over 10 of them are Democrats, and
so we're seeing a change underway where I think government is not
fearing faith-based organizations. And we want to urge those
corporations and foundations that have excluded these groups from their
grants process to take a second look.

Q What are some of those major organizations?

MR. TOWEY: We just had a survey that said the top 50 -- it was an
Internet search, Peter. One of the things we're going to do over the
next nine months is to -- to answer that question you just gave more
specifically -- but some of the top 50 Fortune 500 corporations, 17
percent of their foundations had published policies prohibiting giving
to faith-based organizations. And some -- four out of seven who
mentioned faith-based organizations in their employee matching programs,
mention them to say they're prohibited from matching employee's
contributions.

So I think that we should be looking at ways to fund effective social
service programs. And the reality is many of them are these
neighborhood healers, as President Bush refers to them. So we're
excited about how this summit might forge even more effective
partnerships. I urge you to talk to Wintley Phipps, U.S. Dream Academy,
about some of his experiences in trying to access corporate foundation
money.

Q Was he at this meeting?

MR. TOWEY: He was in the meeting, yes. He was seated directly next to
the President. And then -- so the President's meeting -- just in
closing, Secretary Rice and the President's meeting and Ambassador
Tobias' meeting, I think, will be just an ongoing dialogue as we
continue to work on these issues of mutual concern.